4 H-Bombs in Spain, and the Poisoned Airmen

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Air Force personnel wearing masks and gloves working in the fields where three of the bombs were found.CreditU.S. Air Force

June 27, 2016

To the Editor:

Re “In Sick Airmen, Echo of ’66 Nuclear Crash” (“Hydrogen Bombs’ Aftermath” series, front page, June 20), about the long-range fallout and cover-up of one of the “biggest nuclear accidents in history,” which occurred when a B-52 bomber collided with a jet over Palomares, Spain, in 1966, freeing four hydrogen bombs at a farming village:

The story is frightening in itself and in its implications for our decaying Cold War weapons still leaking into the earth, where they are interred and hidden.

The untrained, unprotected airmen assigned to clean up the spillage were subject to hydrogen poisoning and were not properly tested. Tragically, years afterward, they find themselves ridden with cancer. Because the military continues to deny the danger, they remain unprotected by any benefits.

The Air Force doctor who threw away evidence that might have proved just how vulnerable the men were now utters a feeble “sorry.” One wonders whether, in generations to come, the United States will be making similar apologies to people living near the sites of buried hydrogen bombs, outdated and unused, replaced by ever “smarter” technology.

BARBARA L. ESTRIN

Bronx

To the Editor:

The Air Force must be compelled to cough up the names of the heartless wonders of command who refused to treat these 1,600 airmen with fairness, and the Spanish villagers ignored for the same reasons.

These victims and their families, dead or alive, deserve and must receive decent compensation for the travesty of command they were required to endure and the quality of life they lost and are still losing.

JAMES C. WHITESIDE

Danbury, Conn.

To the Editor:

The details about government efforts to cover up and lie about radiation are disturbing. They follow a consistent pattern going back to the 1940s in which the government and the nuclear industry resort to secrecy, lies, distortions and disinformation to keep the public from knowing the true dangers of radiation.

The public was routinely deceived about the atomic bomb tests, the downwinders, the human radiation experiments, Three Mile Island and contamination at hundreds of places like Rocky Flats, Santa Susana, Uravan, Rancho Seco and Hanford. The deception continues.

The latest effort is the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s termination of the National Academy of Sciences cancer study near nuclear facilities just as the research was about to begin.

No effort is spared to keep the public from knowing the facts about radiation.

ROGER JOHNSON

San Clemente, Calif.

To the Editor:

I am saddened but not surprised that decades later undiagnosed and untreated (and even unrecorded) illnesses showed up in American airmen who worked at a crash site containing nuclear bombs.

It took me almost 18 years to receive service-related compensation for blindness after serving in Vietnam.

And my first request for treatment for Type 2 diabetes as a result of Agent Orange was rejected because the V.A. said it had no record that I had been in Vietnam (despite my Bronze Star and Vietnam Service Medal awarded by the Air Force).

The effects of war are endless, for friend and foe alike.

BRUCE W. RIDER

Grapevine, Tex.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A22 of the New York edition with the headline: 4 H-Bombs and the Poisoned Airmen. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe